Topic: iPhone

Last year, Samsung's exploding Galaxy Note 7 created a catastrophically distracting meltdown for the company that enabled Apple to surpass it in total unit sales of smartphones during the winter quarter. This year, Apple has again surpassed sales of all Samsung smartphones in the quarter, except this time it's by virtue of trend-bucking new demand for the innovative, revolutionary iPhone X--without much apparent regard for its price.

Two employees at a Hong Kong Apple Store were taken to hospital on Friday following another battery-related incident, according to reports, with the pair said to have inhaled smoke generated by an iPhone battery while undertaking an in-store repair of a customer's device.

Not only was Apple's holiday quarter of 2017 a hard compare to previous year's numbers because of three flagship models, but the year-ago quarter had an extra sales week. AppleInsider breaks down the numbers for a closer look at Apple's earnings, on a "average per week" basis.

Apple led the worldwide smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2017, according to fresh statistics from Strategy Analytics, with strong demand for products like iPhone X and iPhone 8 bucking wider market headwinds.

The addition of the iPhone X that commanded a steeper premium than ever before has made Apple's financial quarter an interesting one. The changes over time are best illustrated graphically, showing the magnitude of the quarter, as compared to quarters of years past.

Apple is expanding its efforts to make it easier for the enterprise to more efficiently buy or lease iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watch, Apple TV and other products in a new initiative it is initially rolling out with CDW.

In Apple's quarterly earnings statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook declared that since it shipped to customers, the iPhone X was the biggest seller every week, outpacing the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus through November and December.

In a surprise move, Apple has removed popular messaging apps Telegram and Telegram X from the App Store, reportedly because of problems with "inappropriate content" being distributed through them. [Updated with apps' return]

Bucking -- seemingly spurious -- claims that Apple is cutting iPhone X production due to weak demand, a report from Counterpoint on Wednesday found the flagship iPhone outsold its iPhone 8 and 8 Plus siblings by a 2-to-1 ratio. And it wasn't because iPhone sales flagged.

Apple appears to be launching a trial of a iPhone replacement reservation program in Canada, with the app taking names for particular models, and promising to alert users when the battery is available locally.

Honda's luxury Acura brand is on Thursday launching the 2018 MDX Sport Hybrid, a sport utility with support for Apple CarPlay, which lets iPhone owners control Siri and compatible iOS apps from their dashboard.

Apple late Tuesday confirmed it received, and is currently responding to, questions from U.S. government agencies concerning the handling of iPhone battery issues through a software update that throttled the performance of some handsets.